HMS Calypso was one of two corvettes built by Great Britain in the late 1870s for defending her worldwide empire. Calypso was unusual in several ways, and surprisingly modern. She was one of the first steel ships. They enclosed the steel hull with wood, so that copper sheathing could be attached. Copper resists fouling, and there were no shipyards in the Pacific or Indian oceans where a ship could have had her hull cleaned. She was a fast, square-rigged sailing ship, carrying a lot of canvas; but she also had a very powerful four thousand horsepower triple reduction steam engine, for when coal was available for fuel, and for when there was no wind, such as when she was in the Doldrums [regions of the oceans near the Equator where there is no wind]. Her sister ship was able to survive a typhoon near Samoa because of her powerful engine when many other ships caught in the storm were lost. These two ships were early hybrids.They were the first sea-going warships with rotating gun turrets. In the US Civil War the North's iron clad Monitor had the first rotating turret. Calypso also had twelve old-fashioned wheeled cannons, six on each side. Her four rotating gun turrets were new technology, slow to be accepted by sailors from the traditional era of wooden warships, armed with cannons which couldn't be aimed. She was a formidable weapon, state of the art and cutting edge technology at her time. She was the beginning of the modern age of fast steel warships with rotating guns, and powerful engines, a radical departure from the age where enemy wooden ships would line up, side by side and fire their cannons at each other point-blank. They used to call the gun decks slaughterhouses. First rate wooden warships like Nelson's Victory had 52 cannons on each side. Calypso was given by the Royal Navy before WW I to Newfoundland for training sailors in the new steam and turret technologies. When she "sailed" to Newfoundland, it was without sails or masts, using her steam engine. By WW II she was obsolete and reduced to being used for ammunition storage, anchored safely off shore at Lewisporte, for fear of an explosion as happened in Halifax in WWI. After the Second World War Calypso was further demoted and used for bulk salt storage at her old mooring in Lewisporte harbor, where I saw her often as a boy. Years later, she was towed out to Embree, a small town near Lewisporte further out to sea, and run upon the rocks to rust; an inglorious end to a unique and important piece of history. I have a piece of bronze which my father hacksawed off the propeller, and my cousin has furniture made from her wood. Here is: 1) an old photo of HMS Calypso under full sail 2) A watercolor of Calypso around 1880 3) This is my caricature of the poor rusted ghost of Calypso< 4) A more accurate Calypso. There's a hint of verdigris, the oxide of copper, on both hulls, which are appropriately wood. My ships are made of scraps and old junk, glue and paint. The windows in the stern of the ship is a carryover from the days of sailing in the Napoleonic wars, with windows in the captain's quarters. Think of the Master and Commander movie, based on Patrick O'Brian's excellent books. 5) Calypso I & II side by side. 6) Here is a picture of a wooden hull in the Falkland Islands, which I took on a recent visit; similarly abandoned; but showing where copper sheathing covered her bottom. Copper oxidizes, leaving a greenish residue [verdigris] on the wooden hull. Copper sheathing is now illegal on boats in most places because it is toxic in sea water to all organisms. 7) A drawing by an unknown artist of I believe Calypso's sistership, Calliope, in Antarctic waters on the way to or from Australia, where she encountered and survived a typhoon in the South Pacific, near Samoa. 8) My sketch of Calypso If you would like more information on Calypso, here is a Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Calypso_(1883) Herbert Milley   Submitted By: Herbert Milley